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Toronto can try to kill the ride-booking service. But it can’t stop the tech upheaval Uber spawned.

Uber's entry into Toronto has not been smooth — the city calls it an unlicensed taxi service and is fighting to shut it down — but there's no denying the app's influence. It has spawned a host of imitators, and raised a series of questions about technology, jobs and digital disruption. (Bernard Weil / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Ian Black, Uber Toronto's general manager, attends a lunchtime rally in support of the ride-booking service at city hall in early May. (Andrew Francis Wallace / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

Uber, invariably described as one of the above, will face city hall’s lawyers on June 1 to argue over whether it operates as an unlicensed cab service in Toronto. But don’t let the regulatory fight distract you: Uber isn’t really about cars.

Uber’s app now connects ride-seekers to drivers in more than 300 cities. But the explosive success of its business model — service delivery at the tap of a touch screen, usually provided by casual contractors — is so widely imitated that “It’s like Uber for X” has become an eye-rolling cliché among the tech press corps.

Among the range of what are sometimes called “on-demand mobile services,” there are Uber-like apps for groceries, babysitters and valet parking. There are others for manicurists, bodyguards and medical marijuana. Uber itself offers food delivery in four cities, including this one.

You don’t have to like Uber — and the aggressively expanding company has attracted its fair share of criticism. But you should know that any licensing-and-standards squabble is just one corner of a bigger conversation about technology, jobs and digital disruption.

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Here are some of the other services the Uber model has spawned. (Unlike Uber itself, few are available in Toronto — so far.)

Uber for groceries:

Apps like Instacart let users fill up a virtual grocery cart. When they hit the “buy” button, shoppers — freelancers who receive a notification based on their location — pick up the goods and pocket part of a flat fee.

Uber for laundry:

In the Washio app, users set a 30-minute pickup window for their dry cleaning and laundry. A “ninja” comes to get the clothes and returns them a day later, clean.

Uber for takeout:

In an increasingly crowded field, apps like Caviar, SpoonRocket and UberEATS let users tap on a restaurant-cooked meal option and have it delivered to their door or desk by couriers (or by Uber drivers during the low-volume lunch hour).

Uber for child and pet minding:

Apps such as Urbansitter and the Toronto-based DateNight connect parents with local, available and vetted childminders, while services including DogVacay and DoggyBnB link pet owners with walkers and sitters.

Uber for everything:

A startup called Magic went viral last year after billing itself as the quintessential Uber for X. Text an operator anything (legal) you want — a plate of sushi bicycled to the park bench you’re sitting at, an airplane ticket to Portugal, a puppy — and the service will get it to you. Uber co-founder Garrett Camp recently launched a slicker version of a similar get-me-anything service, a personal shopping app called Operator.

Ian Black, Uber Toronto's general manager, attends a lunchtime rally in support of the ride-booking service at city hall in early May. (Andrew Francis Wallace/Toronto Star)

A startup’s struggles

For a few weeks last winter, Uber seemed to be lurching forward rather than growing up. At the end of a year that saw the company sextuple in size, CEO Travis Kalanick cited rapid expansion as a cause for growing pains. Whatever the cause, seeing Uber totter under the weight of its missteps was like watching a PSA on how not to manage an aggressive tech company expansion. There are other, ongoing criticisms: for instance, that Uber and other on-demand mobile services are contributing to the rise of precarious employment.

Driver strife

Labour lawyers have taken ride-sharing companies to court over the practice of treating drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, and unhappy drivers have gone on strike in multiple cities. (Happy drivers, of course, don’t make headlines.) Uber says it is creating thousands of flexible jobs; critics say Uber, Lyft and similar services are driving an economy built on temporary, unstable, and benefits-free employment. One judge noted that 20th-century labour laws are “woefully outdated” in addressing 21st-century markets.

Safety

On Wednesday, a local Uber driver was arrested and accused of sexually assaulting a passenger in Vaughan. A driver in New Delhi was charged with raping a female rider in December. That victim is suing the company in the U.S., claiming safety checks were lax. For a business model based on trusting strangers, violent crime is a deal-breaker. Uber’s head of global safety, Phillip Cardenas — formerly of Airbnb — vowed improvements and implemented safety upgrades, including incident response teams.

Privacy

In November, a Buzzfeed journalist reported that a top Uber NYC executive had cheerily described “tracking” the journalist’s ride to the company’s headquarters. Earlier that year, the company suffered a large data breach. When companies collect data on customers’ every move and purchase, privacy is paramount. Uber enlisted external experts to review its privacy policies and rolled out improvements.

Media relations

Buzzfeed also reported in November that another executive discussed digging up dirt on a journalist who had been critical of the company. The remarks sparked censure from Kalanick, but not before the press branded Uber as villainous. Soon after, Kalanick blogged that aside from financial growth, “we also need to invest in internal growth and change.”

Surge pricing

During the hostage crisis at a café in Sydney, Australia, in December, Uber riders reported they were charged four times the usual fare. “Surge pricing” is automated and meant to attract more drivers to areas of high demand, the company said, but the move looked like callous gouging, not exactly strengthening Uber’s community-building image. Uber refunded the fares and apologized.

Regulatory trampling

Running roughshod over regulatory systems is less of a bug in Uber’s business model and more of a permanent feature. Even some outside the company say that taxi licensing systems are outdated and ripe for disruption. Nevertheless, in the same post that addressed internal growth, Kalanick wrote that Uber would become a “smarter and more humble” company that “gives back more to the cities we serve.”

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